Difficile Est Saturam Non Scribere – Alan De Botton's Brilliant Satire Of Maranello And The Media

by Derek Kreindler

Published: February 24th, 2014

difficile est saturam non scribere alan de botton s brilliant satire of maranello

Even though I skipped or slept through most of my senior year Classical Civilizations course (sorry, Ms. Rogow), one of the laminated quotes in the drafty class room always caught my eye – the quip that forms the pretentious title of this entry, which translates to “it’s difficult to not write satire”. Alain de Botton is, to my knowledge, not a car guy. He is a self-described philosopher (and prolific author) in an epoch where titling yourself as such is almost as bad as using the term “game changer”. de Botton’s newest project, The Philosopher’s Mail, is a hilarious send-up of the often mocked Daily Mail newspaper in the UK, which is a tabloid in the best tradition of Fleet Street and shlocky British yellow journalism (though it is uncharacteristically devoid of bare female breasts). The Philosopher’s Mail recently published a brilliant send-up of the new Ferrari California T, managing to simultaneously empathize and lampoon Ferrari owners, as well as the barely re-written press releases that often characterize the introduction of one of Maranello’s newest machines. These sorts of pieces tend to appear in everything from automotive news aggregators to airline magazines to the world’s leading “men’s luxury lifestyle” publications, but they all have the same obsequiously sycophantic tone to them. You will never read a better parody of this genre.

#AlainDeBotton #Ferrari #FerrariCalifornia #FerrariCaliforniaT

Derek Kreindler

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U mad scientist on Feb 25, 2014

This article and comments make for an interesting expose on the american psyche: 1. American bravado believes itself every bit the peer of wealth, and apparently the "wealthy" have a chip on their shoulder about consumption. 2. Americans have poor literacy. The article's more interesting point reflects on the superficiality of social relationships, which presumably creates this need to front. 3. Combined, this urgent need to dismiss anything that's a bit harder to understand. It's tempting to ponder why, but who knows what those who don't think are thinking.

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- Brenschluss on Feb 25, 2014
  
  That's as facile an argument against the folks responding, as anyone has made against the article. The article didn't really break any interesting ground in "the superficiality of social relationships," it just made some simple assumptions about how anyone who buys something expensive is emotionally damaged, and must have a corrupted sense of how others perceive them. It's not their fault they want a Ferrari, poor wittle babies, they've just been made by the world around them to feel as though they aren't worthy of, or won't receive respect without Luxury Goods. Poor things. This isn't really a topic I even care about, but it's frustrating watching people respond to this as if it were dialectic discourse rather than rehashing some stereotypes with pretense.
  
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- U mad scientist on Feb 25, 2014
  
  @brenschluss > The article didn’t really break any interesting ground in “the superficiality of social relationships,” it just made some simple assumptions about how anyone who buys something expensive is emotionally damaged, and must have a corrupted sense of how others perceive them. It’s not their fault they want a Ferrari, poor wittle babies, they’ve just been made by the world around them to feel as though they aren’t worthy of, or won’t receive respect without Luxury Goods. Poor things. Is this supposed to reply to or any way address my comment? It reads like this: A: 2+2=4 B: Oh, mr fancy pants here, all thinking 2 and 2 make 4. that must make you sooooo special.
  
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- Brenschluss on Feb 25, 2014
  
  @u mad scientist I don't know; what I gleaned from your post was that stupid American commenters had dismissed an insightful article on human relations because it's out of their depth. So, I said that was wrong. It's not hard to understand, it's just written on a false premise. I took umbrage, maybe I misread.
  
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- U mad scientist on Feb 25, 2014
  
  @brenschluss > American commenters had dismissed an insightful article on human relations because it’s out of their depth Given that they objectively missed the main premise as evidenced by the comments, the claim is accurate. Whether the premise is insightful is irrelevant at that point.
  
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- Pch101 on Feb 25, 2014
  
  @brenschluss "it just made some simple assumptions about how anyone who buys something expensive is emotionally damaged" Taken at its face, the article says that all of us contribute to the problem, as we've created a social order that makes status-seeking victims out of all of us. Or you could see the whole thing as a pisstake, in which case these people really are ***holes, after all.
  
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- U mad scientist on Feb 25, 2014
  
  @Pch101 Yes, when the message is basically: "These people aren't greedy, they're just needy attention whores seeking validation", replies of "it's not compensating" or "they work so hard" make zero sense.
  
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Juicy sushi on Feb 25, 2014

This entire thread of comments is semiotics in action. I am sure that Umberto Eco's next novel will be a satire of how social media changes the nature of audiences and their reactions to creative work...

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U mad scientist on Feb 25, 2014

For those who still don't get why/how they're being mocked, at the expense of explaining the joke here's a play by play: 1. Author seemingly brings arguments against X 2. Reveals greater truth Y to do so 3. Fully expressing Y implies X after all When you're hurt by the butt of a joke, instead of fulfilling that butthurt by explaining how it's not *always* true, it's better to counter with a better burn of your own and so on and so forth. Otherwise, the only part of the joke worth discussing is the straight portion 2.

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- U mad scientist on Feb 25, 2014
  
  The hell? "B u t t" is a moderated word?
  
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Jeffzekas on Feb 25, 2014

Having grown up in L.A. I would say, Yes, cars are used to project image, wealth and power. Learned this in high school, seeing the rich kids drive BMW's and Vettes, whilst the poor slobs drove old Crown Vics or rode the bus! As for the shallow rich: best summarized in the film Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

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